Paris (AFP)

From the novelty to the menu of the next Tour de France: the Loze pass, an unparalleled alpine summit above Méribel, and a time trial at the Planche des Belles Filles will be decisive on the route of the 2020 edition unveiled Tuesday in Paris.

Between Nice, June 27, and the Champs-Elysees, July 19, the layout, muscular, nervous, dynamic, is substantially as mountainous as that of last summer. With fewer passages at very high altitude but more mountainous medium since, besides the Pyrenees and the Alps, the other three massifs of the Hexagon (Massif Central, Jura, Vosges) are in the spotlight.

The program appealed to the runners present in the main hall of the Palais des Congrès. Even if Egan Bernal, the outgoing Colombian winner, links his presence to the decision of his team Ineos, which will have in 2020 abundance of possible leaders (with also Froome and Thomas), just like his counterpart Jumbo (Roglic, Dumoulin, Kruijswijk).

"It's not just a decision on my part and I do not exclude other possibilities," Bernal said, referring to the Giro. Echo, teammate Chris Froome, warmly applauded by the public, remained cautious.

"I already need to get back to my level before I even start talking about who will be the leader or that kind of thing," said the Briton, a four-time winner of the event but crippled by fractures (cervical vertebra, femur, hip , elbow, ribs) after its heavy fall in June.

For his part, Julian Alaphilippe, in yellow for 14 days last summer, said he was "packed" without setting itself already on the general classification. As for Thibaut Pinot, unhappy with two days of the term in July, he savored the perspective of the time trial of 36 kilometers passing by him, in Mélisey (Haute-Saône), to join the Planche of the Beautiful Girls on the eve of arrival.

- The collar of the 21st century -

Pinot, like the other climbers, was very interested in the "roof" of the Tour, the Loze Pass, at 2304 meters above sea level (17th stage). "The prototype of the 21st century pass", says the director of the Great Circle Christian Prudhomme, who was conquered by this new road, actually a 7-kilometer track for single bike destination, recently tarmacked above the station Savoyard of Meribel.

"It's a succession of ruptures of slope, all more brutal than the others", explains the director of the Tour, enthusiastic after the inaugural passage of the Tour de l'Avenir last summer. For pure climbers, it's all profit.

This Tour, which enters very quickly in the mountain, skims the Atlantic with a stage of island to island (Oléron to Ré) and gives a large place to the Massif Central. The Cévènes (Aigoual) in the first week, the Auvergne in the second (Puy Mary) after a stage ending in front of the museum dedicated to Jacques Chirac in Sarran, a choice decided well before the death of the former president. He also innovates by going to the Grand Colombier, the mountain-totem of the Jura where will be judged for the first time a stage finish at the entrance of the last week.

Before the shock of the Col de la Loze, probably the event of the next Tour, advanced one week compared to previous editions because of the online race of the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled for Saturday, July 25, 2020.

"The course is fully drawn in the Hexagon," said Christian Prudhomme, between two editions starting from Brussels (2019) and Copenhagen (2021). "There will be 29 passes, one less than originally planned for the 2019 Tour before the neutralization of the Tignes stage".

The director of the Tour has identified four new climbs, including Hourcère in the second stage and the Pyrenees Loze which, in the opinion of Christian Prudhomme, has everything to become a long-term classic. "The Tour continues to renew itself," he said at the end of his presentation. "Next year, the longest leg will be 218 kilometers - never will the longest leg have been so short!"

© 2019 AFP